“Top White House adviser Steve Bannon is pushing for tax reform to include a new 44 percent top marginal tax rate, hitting people who earn more than $5 million a year, with the revenue paying for tax cuts for the rest, according to three people who’ve spoken to him recently. […] Axios previously reported that Bannon was looking to raise the top marginal rate to “something with a four in front of it,” but the 44 percent bracket for those making $5 million and above is a more fleshed out proposal. Bannon has described himself as an “economic nationalist” and has pushed a populist agenda both through his previous outlet Breitbart News and as an adviser to Trump. That contrasts with what Bannon calls the “globalist” wing of the party, made up by people like economic adviser Gary Cohn (though both Cohn and Bannon come from Goldman Sachs).”

There is no need to adjust your Internet tubes; your lying eyes are not deceiving you, not this time. The Gin Blossom King actually proposed a smart, reasonable, and immensely beneficial policy initiative that would provide a great deal of tax relief to an increasingly overburdened middle-class. Never mind that it doesn’t go nearly far enough to compensate for the massive levels of inequality of nation is experience, which would require something, to paraphrase Bannon himself, “with a nine in front of it”; it’s a good idea, coming from the Party Of Bad Ideas. Which is precisely why it was DOA the moment it slurred forth from that puckery, spittle-flecked mouth of his.

“This has not come up,” said Jason Pye, vice president for legislative affairs at the libertarian group FreedomWorks, which opposes all income tax hikes. Pye said the group has been in “regular contact with the White House,” but “we didn’t bring [Bannon’s tax hike proposal] up because we didn’t see it gaining any traction.” […] In an interview with The Daily Beast, Norquist added that he hadn’t seen the White House float the idea with any vigor. Bannon’s proposal “is not part of the debate at present,” he said. “I don’t see that this one has gotten any bounce or pickup.” He noted that the proposal would violate an ATR pledge to oppose tax hikes signed by hundreds of state and federal officials, including Trump. Norquist said he hadn’t brought up the issue directly in discussions with the White House. “It’s embarrassing when you ask somebody about a very silly idea they put forward,” he said. “It’s up there with, ‘Was that you that farted?’”

And for that, you should be relieved.

Weird, right?

Here’s the thing: there are few things that could be more immediately damaging to our governmental system than if the Trump Organization were to suddenly develop a competency streak. Everyone – and I mean, everyone – is looking for any and every way they can to either distance themselves from the president* or normalize his country-wrecking shenanigans. Pushing a narrative about tax reform, even just for show, would give Republicans and their media enablers much-needed traction in issuing Trump the required mediocrity merit badges to remain credible, helping them to pushing false equivalence between him and the imaginary liberal bogeymen they continue to cook up, each one more outrageous than the last in order to compensate for his ridiculousness.

“Herein lies the problem with conquering a political party because the multitudes of establishment candidates they put up were easily stuffed in lockers: The rest of the party apparatus is still there after the fact. Bannon might want to raise taxes on the rich. Trump might even be open to it; he said he was, for what that's worth, as recently as last week.But the network of donors and large corporations and interest groups and lobbying outfits who pay the campaign bills don't want that. So the congressmen and senators beholden to them don't want that. Paul Ryan doesn't want that, and neither will basically anyone in his caucus, from the unhinged fundamentalists in the Freedom Caucus to the apocryphal moderates. They are all devoted priests in the Church of Supply-Side Economics, lighting a candle for Saint Reagan as they whisper, over and over, that tax cuts for the rich stimulate growth and pay for themselves. That's why the "deficit hawks" in the passage above won't consider raising taxes in any way, shape, or form, despite the fact that increasing revenues is one of just two ways to close a deficit. The other is cutting programs and services, usually for people who don't pay campaign bills.”

Nothing is more important to the Republican Party than gutting the treasury and burning D.C. to ashes in exchange for tax cuts for their neo-feudal puppet masters. Period. They would rather let Donald Trump wipe his ass with the American flag and then set it on fire live on network television than support even the suggestion of any policy that doesn’t adhere to this objective. It matters not whether the party has their dick dragged through the dirt for the next four or eight years or not; the corporate media Memory Hole may be showing signs of strain after shoving the entire Bush regime in there, but they’ve got room for plenty more Trumpistas to be unpersoned as needed. Does anyone remember Michael Flynn anymore? Yeah...that was fucking February.